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In light of the recent developments “surveillance” is a really hot topic. Whether it’s about criticism, its potential uses or its decentralized cousin “sousveillance“, when reading about global politics, people’s liberties and rights you can hardly escape the world: Surveillance.

Depending on which agent within the public debate you ask, surveillance makes the streets safer, people its powerless slaves, it creates a utopia of security and prosperity or an oppressive dystopian dictatorship. Obviously the debate is more complex spanning a whole continuum of positions between the two extremes I just pointed out.

We see studies being created and thrown into each others faces about whether surveillance works or not (many experts arguing that surveillance is at least not a very cost-efficient way to get results [just look at how expensive the Utah NSA data center is compared to how they failed in the past in their “war against terror”] ). We see especially civil-rights activists arguing that mass surveillance infringes on human rights so massively (pun intended) that it is generally and absolutely unacceptable.

I believe that this whole argument deals with the wrong idea. Surveillance is a consequence, not a root cause, so we are fighting symptoms, not problems. The real issue at hand is the idea of control.

Governments don’t deploy mass surveillance because they like mass surveillance or data. They cling to the idea of being able and being expected to be in control. And we are far from innocent here.

Bad stuff(tm) happens and what is the first question the media/the public asks? “Where was the police?” quickly followed by “How can we make sure it does not happen again?”. It’s deeply human to do so. We hate bad things happening just as much as we want to feel safe and protected.

This puts governments in a very difficult position, because – let’s face it – the world is a messy and chaotic place. Billions and billions of people, each having their own opinions, agendas and ideas. Each one of them potentially able to cause a lot of damage. If you are a politician focused on security the world is your own personal hell.

So what do you do? You try to control as much as possible. Try to limit chaos and chance, try to make the world predictable. In come the technologists: The software engineers, the big data people, the scientists and the IT-consultants.

Their promise was simple: “Give us enough money,” they said, “and we can predict whose going to misbehave.” They promised control. And the politicians, driven by the public’s demand for control, bought into the sales pitch.

And that’s where we are now. Blaming governments for mass surveillance they implemented to meet our desires for a safe and comfortable life. And if we want to break that vicious circle of more money thrown at the surveillance apparatus because it just isn’t good enough when something bad(tm) happens, we have to start: By not buying into our own common fear of the chaotic and often somewhat alien world.

The mass surveillance state is just as much a product of “evil” politicians and companies as it is a response to our demands, our wish for a strong and powerful entity making our lives safe, replacing the parents whose lack of omnipotence we had to realize growing up.

The world is chaotic and absurd and weird and terrible and brilliant. It’s time we grew up and realized that, we as a public just as we as governments and people in power. And that would make not only mass surveillance history but also make sure that no other similarly dangerous strategies get implemented.

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As I’ve said before: that problem also starts in much smaller ways. As a parent, it’s not at all easy to explain why you don’t always know there whereabouts of your children. I know I can trust them, I know that they’re old enough to roam, I know that they keep agreements and know when they have to be back. So why should I, as their parent, keep on knowing every step of their day? This is not an entirely accepted viewpoint.

The thing is: we as the public, or “the masses” are only one player in this. Capital as the dominant force in this world loves a stable, predictable, computational world. so the question is: Who is able to assert more force on “those in power”? I don’t think it’s us, Also because to do so, I feel, we currently need the capital, that ultimately works against us.

I intentionally simplified the argument here, but you are raising a very valid point: A controllable, computable, predictable world is in business’ best interest putting even stronger pressure on politics to buy into the illusion of possible control.